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Chapter 4
Charge Me Up
Left alone after concluding his meeting with Director Jang, Ho-rang pulled out his phone. The business had wrapped up well, but he felt far from good. Secretary Yoon had sent a text confirming that the tie pin was nowhere to be found.
Ho-rang touched his tie. Having something disappear after sitting on his chest for over twenty years left him feeling hollow and empty.
To him, that tie pin was something of a protective charm. Yet he had managed to lose it today, of all days—the very day before his surgery.
“Excuse me!”
Just as he finished replying to Secretary Yoon, someone called out to him. Turning around, Ho-rang grimaced the moment he recognized Bo-bae’s face. Entangled with this woman since morning, he had even lost his tie pin—there was no way he would be glad to see her.
“10 meters.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m certain I told you to stay 10 meters away.”
“Ah, no, it’s not that! I just have something to say.”
“Something to say?”
“As you might have gathered from listening to my conversation with Director Jang earlier, I’m a writer. A drama writer.”
“So what?”
It didn’t matter. Whether this woman was a drama writer, a producer, or an actor—it made no difference, nor did he have the slightest interest. Even the network president was lined up asking for sponsorship, so what was a writer to him?
“So I wanted to let you know that I’m not a weird person. Honestly, my asking to kiss you earlier was all because of my script—”
“Enough. I don’t care to hear any more.”
“No, but still—”
“I understood what you were trying to say, so stop right there.”
Bo-bae had intended to apologize for her earlier behavior and formally ask for his help. Hearing him say he understood before she could even elaborate made her think he was remarkably quick-witted. Still, she was relieved the misunderstanding was cleared up; otherwise, she would have been labeled a female pervert.
Feeling relieved, she was just about to hand over the tie pin he had dropped when Ho-rang muttered under his breath:
“Throwing your body around just because you lack talent. Unbelievable.”
In an instant, Bo-bae doubted her own ears and asked,
“Are you saying that to me?”
“You ask when you already know. I saw it all at the cafe earlier—you eavesdropping on our conversation.”
“No, that was—”
“Using your body to make moves because your writing skills fall short?”
“What?”
“How unfortunate, though. No matter how much you push yourself with that body, it’s not going to work. I have zero interest in a wretched, meager body like yours. Don’t crave my body with such rotten ideas. It’s utterly repulsive.”
Ho-rang spoke as he scanned Bo-bae up and down, leaving her so utterly flabbergasted that she couldn’t squeeze out a single word.
A writer throwing her body at him just to secure a sponsorship.
That was how this man viewed her.
Sure, she had shamelessly pushed for a kiss, but to treat a person like total trash? It was absurd beyond belief.
“Hey! You seem to be misunderstanding something—”
“Are you incapable of understanding simple words for a writer? Let me repeat myself. Even if you happen to see me, do not pretend to know me. And keep a minimum distance of 10 meters.”
Having delivered his piece, Ho-rang stepped into the car that had just pulled up, and the vehicle drove off immediately.
“HA! What kind of piece of trash is he?! Hey! I don’t like you either! I have standards, too! I will NEVER come near an arrogant jerk like you! Even if you get down on your knees and beg me to come close, I won’t even stand within 1 meter—no, 100 meters of you, so don’t you dare think of coming near me either! You total jerk!”
Grasping the tie pin tightly in her hand, Bo-bae screamed at the top of her lungs.
Whether he was the only man in the world she could touch or not, she prayed she would never cross paths with him ever again.
After finishing her part-time shift, Bo-bae headed home.
Ascending a alley so steep you could ride a sled down it in the winter, she reached a dark, dilapidated building. For some reason, all the lights in the staircase and hallway were out. A lone surviving light bulb was struggling to emit a dim glow before losing its power and shutting off entirely.
Dragging her body, which felt heavy like soaked cotton, Bo-bae stepped into the building. Instantly, the ground floor light flickered on, brightly illuminating the path ahead of her. As Bo-bae climbed the stairs, the lights turned on and off one by one, following her steps.
Reaching her rooftop apartment, Bo-bae glared at the brightly glowing light bulb above her head and muttered,
“Damn this electric power!”
If it weren’t for this ridiculous ability, none of today’s humiliation would have happened. She wouldn’t have begged a stranger for a kiss like a crazy woman, nor would she have endured insulting remarks about using her body due to a lack of writing skill.
“No, to begin with, I would have written romantic scenes perfectly fine—exquisitely thrilling ones, too.”
Bo-bae flopped onto the wooden bench outside and looked back on the events of the day.
The impossibly handsome face that saved her from falling, his firm forearms, broad shoulders, and that electrifying current that surged the moment their bodies touched.
In her understanding, electricity was something that flowed from her to a man. But this time was different. It flowed from the man to her. She had never experienced this before, and she had assumed she never would in her lifetime.
“So what? He’s a total, unmitigated jerk.”
“Using your body to make moves because your writing skills fall short?”
“I have zero interest in a wretched, meager body like yours.”
“Don’t crave my body with such rotten ideas. It’s utterly repulsive.”
“Keep a minimum distance of 10 meters!”
Recalling the words he had spat at her earlier, Bo-bae kicked furiously at the air.
“Argh! What? ‘Meager’? Fine! Poverty has eaten right into my bones, so yeah, my body is meager, you rotten bastard! And what? 10 meters distance? Someday, the day will come when you beg on your knees to come near me. I’ll make sure of it!”
Fuming, Bo-bae looked up at the sky. A full moon hung bright and round against the dark backdrop. Without a speck of fine dust, the night sky was exceptionally clear today.
“Pretty… the full moon.”
Staring at the moon for a long while, Bo-bae clasped her hands together and made a wish.
“Dear Moon. If I ever meet that man again, please make him desperate to come to my side. Make sure he can never say things like ’10 meters distance’ again, and make him beg on his knees to apologize to me. Promise!”
Clasping her hands in prayer, Bo-bae extended her pinky toward the moon. As if answering her wish, the full moon glinted brightly—so brilliantly as if it were truly going to grant her request.
“Sigh. Why would a man so high and mighty ever apologize to someone like me? Right. You’re forbidden to come close, too. Just try coming near me, see what happens to you!”
As she shouted into the empty air, a thunderous rumble echoed from Bo-bae’s stomach.
“Ah… come to think of it, I haven’t eaten a single thing all day.”
Stepping inside her room, Bo-bae picked up a piece of bread resting on the table and sniffed it.
“Does it smell a bit sour? No, this much is fine. It’s only 5 days past the expiration date. Aah, I’m so hungry.”
As Bo-bae devoured the bread ravenously, dark clouds began to gather around the full moon outside. Then—CRACK! A silent flash of lightning split the clear sky, and rain began to fall softly.
The next day. Taeseong Hospital.
“So this is the newly developed artificial heart battery?”
Ho-rang asked, staring at a fingernail-sized battery sitting on the desk. Professor Kwak replied,
“It was extremely difficult to secure that new model. A brand-new release.”
“I’m not an early adopter. Especially when it comes to things going inside my body.”
“Don’t worry. It might look small, but this is a semi-permanent battery developed by Johns Hopkins.”
In truth, Ho-rang had suffered from a weak heart since childhood and lived relying on an artificial heart.
There had been no major issues. He lived just like anyone else and could exercise freely as long as it wasn’t overly intense.
The issue was the battery. Fearing that the battery powering his artificial heart would run out, he had to undergo periodic replacement surgeries.
Healthwise, it wasn’t a major problem. However, whenever news broke that Ho-rang was going under the knife, the company’s stock price fluctuated wildly, making him prime target practice for those eyeing his position.
“You’re not using my body as an experimental ground for a new battery model, are you?”
“Are you doubting my skills?”
At Professor Kwak’s sharp retort, Ho-rang offered a faint smile.
Despite his grumpy tone, Professor Kwak was one of the world’s top surgeons. Moreover, he was a close friend of Ho-rang’s late father.
“Just make sure your condition is managed well. This will be the last surgery I perform on you.”
“I’ll leave myself in your care.”
Bowing his head politely, Ho-rang looked out the window.
The rain that had been falling since last night was still dampening the ground outside. He hoped to see a clear, sunny sky once the surgery was over.
“Ouch. My stomach… I feel like I’m going to die.”
After eating the spoiled bread, Bo-bae had spent the entire night clutching her stomach, rolling around her room in pain.
It hurt excruciatingly. The pain was so intense she could barely breathe, yet she tried to endure it. Thinking a simple digestive pill might cure it, she swallowed one and waited a long time, but there was no sign of improvement. Far from getting better, the pain steadily intensified.
“I can’t… hold out any longer…”
Sobbing, Bo-bae finally dialed 119 for an ambulance.
“My stomach… my stomach hurts so much. Please help me.”
After giving her address, Bo-bae pleaded desperately.
“Excuse me. Is there a female paramedic among the 119 crew? A female responder has to come—it’ll be a disaster if a male paramedic comes. Please send a female paramedic…!”
Unable to explain the true reason over the phone, Bo-bae simply kept shouting for a female officer.
Shortly after.
The ambulance carrying Bo-bae cut through the pouring rain and arrived at Taeseong Hospital.
Bo-bae was rushed into the emergency room, where she underwent a series of examinations.
“It’s acute appendicitis.”
“Appendicitis… as in an inflamed appendix?”
“Yes. You need surgery immediately.”
Surgery? She had assumed it was just food poisoning from spoiled bread. Come to think of it, her stomach had been aching even before eating the bread. She had felt a dull pain for a few days, yet amidst all that, she had eaten spoiled bread just because she was hungry.
“We are taking you into surgery right now.”
“What? Right now?”
“Yes, immediately.”
“Excuse me, Doctor.”
Bo-bae looked with anxious eyes at the female doctor who had assisted with her tests and said,
“You are going to perform the surgery on me, right?”
“No, another doctor will be—”
“I really need a female surgeon to do my operation. Absolutely.”
It was her first time having surgery in her life. Whenever she had to visit a hospital, she always made reservations at places with female doctors—to think something like this would happen so suddenly.
“A female doctor must perform my surgery so neither of us faces disastrous consequences… Aaargh! My stomach…”
“Move her to the operating room!”
Around the time Bo-bae’s bed was being rolled toward the operating room, Ho-rang’s surgery began.
Heavy rain continued to pour from the sky outside, accompanied by occasional flashes of lightning and thunder. However, in the windowless operating room, there was no way to tell whether it was raining or storming outside.
“Battery.”
As Professor Kwak held out his hand, the assisting doctor handed him the battery.
Once this battery was connected, Ho-rang would never have to step onto an operating table ever again. He would be much freer from the threats of those eyeing his position.
Looking forward to that day, the moment Professor Kwak connected the battery to the artificial heart—
BOOM! RUMBLE! CRASH!
With a deafening roar of thunder, a flash of light burst from the battery attached to Ho-rang’s heart! Moments later, not only the operating room, but the entire hospital was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
“What was that?”
“It appears to be a power outage.”
“A power outage?! Does that make any sense? What about the backup generator?”
“Well… it seems there’s a problem with that as well.”
“Is that something you should be saying in an operating room?! Go check on it right now!”
“Yes, sir!”
Professor Kwak’s sharp shouts echoed, but in the pitch blackness where no one could see an inch ahead, moving around was nearly impossible.
Just as the doctors and nurses were panicking in the dark trying to activate the backup power—
A single beam of light streamed in from the end of the dark hallway.
It was the only light illuminating the hospital swallowed by darkness.
The light coming from the far end of the hallway lit up the next bulb, and then the next.
The lights were turning on one by one, following the path of a rolling hospital bed!
It was the very bed carrying Bo-bae!
Relying on that beam of light, people began finding their way and were finally able to resolve the issue.
“Backup power is online!”
As the lights flickered back on, Professor Kwak immediately checked Ho-rang’s condition. Heart rate and blood pressure were both completely normal. The artificial heart and battery were connected properly, and his heart was beating steadily like that of a healthy person.
Though there had been a brief blackout, fortunately, Ho-rang suffered no complications whatsoever.
“Alright, let’s close up. Scalpel.”
